458 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



wins. And the strongest mil win only, lie can win only, on the 

 condition that he does infringe on the liberty of his opponent, 

 that he does take advantage of his opponent's weakness in order 

 to crush him. The victor in every contest, be it physical, moral, 

 or economic, is always and necessarily victor at the expense of the 

 vanquished. That is to say, the rights of the vanquished as 

 individual and citizen have not been heeded : they have been 

 disregarded. The victor is victorious, and draws advantage 

 from his victory, not merely because he is an individual, but 

 because he is the stronger individual. In competition, and by 

 the very idea of competition, so far as there is any meaning in 

 the word, it is not the rights of the individual which are con- 

 sidered, but the rights of the victor alone — the rights, that is 

 to say, of the stronger. Competition puts a premium on the 

 stronger, the better adapted, on those better fitted and better 

 armed to carry out the struggle. The weaker go to the wall 

 without regard to their supposed individual rights. And 

 Herbert Spencer was only logical when he celebrated the beneficial 

 results of the " poverty of the incapable," and of the " distresses 

 that come upon the imprudent," and of the " shoulderings aside 

 of the weak by the strong, which leave so many in shallows and 

 miseries." Poverty, distress, misery, must be the result of 

 economic competition. We do not say that this economic 

 competition is bad, or that the poverty and misery of the incap- 

 able are things to be avoided ; but we do emphatically say that 

 these results are inconsistent with the principle of the restriction 

 of the liberty of each individual by the Uberty of the others. 

 Between the idea of competition, on the one hand, and the 

 idea of treating every man as an end in himself, and not as a 

 means, lies a gulf which is not to be bridged over ; for these ideas 

 are antithetical and mutually exclusive. Does the victor in a 

 competition treat the vanquished as an " end in himself " ? 

 Does he not rather treat him as a means to an end, and that end 

 his own triumph ? 



